change the past."
"I just wondered how she felt about the poems," David says, as the waitress sets their drinks on the table.
"She used to love them. I do think, though, that she's always held them at a distance. It always seemed like she saw Imeros as a book of poems written by someone else, not by her Jacob, a me before her."
"It's got to be difficult for her. Everyone always brings up Imeros when they talk to you, at least that's what happens when I've been around. In some ways, I would think that just hearing the word is a not so subtle reminder of Melissa. Not just for you, but for her too. It must be emotionally exhausting for her."
"I wouldn't say everyone talks to me about Imeros. Maybe in the small, literary circles that we're in, but, overall, it doesn't come up as often as you might think."
"Still though, you have to admit it could be difficult for her."
"Yeah, I guess when it does come up it's probably difficult, but we've never really talked about it. I guess she's just gotten used to it by now. It's not as if this is new. People have been talking to me about Imeros ever since I've known Rachael. Besides, if it does bother her, she probably knows that it bothers me just as much."
"How so?"
"Because, frankly, I don't want to constantly talk about what I did twenty years ago. I want to talk about what I'm doing now."
"What are you doing now?"
"That's the problem. I'm not doing anything."
"So, what about your muse then?"
"Well, completely ignoring the fact that were freely using the word muse in a casual way, I think I may have met someone."
"What do you mean you think you've met someone? Either you have or you haven't."
"I've definitely met someone. I just don't know if she's the one or not, or how I find out if she's the one, or what I'm supposed to do about it when I find out."
"That was fast. I really wasn't expecting you to meet anyone. I figured you'd spend the next couple weeks going through your usual internal monologues, endlessly weighing the pro's and con's of the situation. Even then though, I never thought you'd end up going through with it. When we talked about it the other day, I imagined you would just float from fantasy to fantasy, not actually ending up on any one person. I guess I never thought you'd have the balls to do anything about it."
"I haven't done anything about it."
"But you are acknowledging that this person could be the person you've been waiting for—the potential muse you were talking about the other day?"
"God, it's maddening talking about it like that. It sounds so patronizing to refer to a person that way."
"Would you prefer mistress to muse?"
"No. No, I told you it's not like that."
"Then what is it like?" David asks.
The waitress drops their food off at the table.
"It's nothing right now," Jacob whispers, trying to let the waitress in on as little of their conversation as possible. He waits to finish speaking until she is clear of the table. "But it could be something that brings some desire back into my life, something that inspires me to work again."
"So, you've met a girl—I'm assuming she's a young, beautiful girl—that you have no plans of engaging with on a physical level, but you hope that she inspires you to write poetry."
"Right."
"So, a muse then?"
"I guess. It's just that when we say it like that it sounds terrible. It strips her of all her individuality. It makes her seem like an instrument used only for my own creative output. It's an expression that lacks warmth and makes her sound like some mere academic exercise. It really is absurd."
"Oh, it's definitely absurd. But we're middle-aged now. Absurdity is all we have left."
"Wow. That's harsh."
"But true."
"It doesn't matter what we call it. All I know is that it's the desire that's key. I need to desire something again. That's the basic problem I have. I haven't had anything to chase in a long time, nothing to desire. I really think that it's the chasing that keeps our minds young, keeps us hungry. Without desire, there's nothing to chase but time, and life moves slowly, imperceptibly toward stagnation. I need something to move me again, something to change the equation."
"I don't mean to play devil's advocate here but isn't there a greater danger in all of this."
"Like what?"
"It sounds to me like you're thinking about this as some simple, personal exercise. You act like semantics is what turns a person into a creative instrument. The words aren't guilty, you are. You're the one that wants to desire her for the work. But you of all people should understand the delicacy of emotion, the fragile shell of desire. You can't control your wants as easily as you seem to think. Once that emotional ball starts rolling, everything has a way of slipping away from your expectations. No matter how much you think you can control this, it'll end up controlling you in the end."
"But I think we're talking about different things. I think you're talking about the problems I would encounter if I endeavored to engage this girl physically, but I don't plan on engaging her. Not really. I plan to admire her, desire her from afar. It'll be easier for me to build an ideal around her if she can't frustrate that ideal with reality."
"Still, I think you're grossly misjudging the affect desire can have on you. It's a force that pulls."
"We'll see," Jacob says, obviously trying to change the subject, pushing and pulling his food around with his fork.
"Who is this girl anyway?"
"I'd rather not say."
"Someone I know?"
"I don't think so, but it's possible."
"A student?"
"Come on, David. I don't want to talk about it."
"You know, this will probably end terribly, but at least it'll make for an interesting spring."
The evening before spring classes were to begin, Jacob was on edge. He was still thinking about his conversation with David the previous day, and wondering if David was right to say that he's being naive. It is certainly the case that he never stopped to consider the possibility that he might fall in love with Joelle, mostly because the whole idea seemed so absurd. It has been years, decades since Jacob has felt that first flood of emotions, that first blush of falling in love. And even if it were possible for him to fall for Joelle, he never intended on getting close enough to let it happen.
The whole idea behind finding a muse was to find inspiration in some distant vessel, someone he could bestow his ideas of perfection on. He was hoping to find some seemingly unreachable fantasy of a woman where he could place some meaning, some truth. He knows that, in reality, the level of expectation that this sets is one that no woman could fully embody outside the fantastical.
The truth is, he was really just hoping to reawaken his Melissa—his perfection, his muse—and maybe kick up the dust of any old feelings that might still be hiding inside.
The emotionally scary part is that Joelle really resembles his memories of Melissa, and seeing her has been waking up all those old memories in his mind, which has stirred some of those old emotions, both good and bad.
Also, Jacob has been wondering about Rachael, and what all this could mean for her. David was right to wonder how she's felt about Imeros, about Melissa. Outside of the beginning of their relationship, it's not something they've ever spent a whole lot of time talking about, and he's never really bothered to ask how she feels about it. Maybe it's an insecurity that she's always carried with her, a weight she's been bearing for years.
The other day, after Gary's funeral, when they talked about his inability to write, she asked him if she should be worried. The truth is, he can't say. He has no plans to fall in love again. Still though, if one were to fall in love there is not a whole lot that can be done to stop it. It's not as if you can just remove yourself from the object of your desire. That could only make matters worse. In some ways, once the fall has begun, it's best to keep falling and then, maybe at a certain point, you recognize that falling in
love is never going to graduate into simply being in love, and then you can get back to your life, or whatever is left of it.
Jacob is staring out the office window again, just as he has every night since the day he met Joelle. He stares at their house, desperate to catch a glimpse of her. On previous nights, he has seen nothing. But tonight shadows have bounced from room to room, giving him hope, keeping him standing at the window, looking.
And, no more than he thinks about walking away, there she is.
She stands at their front room window, looks out. She is obviously fresh from a shower because her dark, long hair is glistening with wet. She is wearing a pair of shorts—as short as the ones she wore the day they met—and a little white shirt that hugs the slender shape of her torso, exemplifying the curves of her modest breasts, and it's a breathtaking wave that dips and crests at her hips.
She stands there for several minutes just staring out at the street. Then she looks up at his window. He thinks of stepping back further, but doesn't. He just stands there, looking down at her, mesmerized by the spell of her stare. His mind races in circles. His heart is pounding. Does she see him? He's not sure. The light in his office is off, and it seems unlikely that she could see inside a dark house at night, but she definitely seems to be looking at him—through him, really. Either way, it doesn't make any difference. He can feel her eyes no matter what she sees.
“What are you looking at?” Rachael asks from the doorway of the office. He jumps from the sudden break in silence and turns